Episode 7 Animal Frontline

Good afternoon. RSPCA Control Centre.

Is the cat still breathing?

-No.

-You don't think it's breathing.

Every 30 seconds,

someone calls the RSPCA about an animal that needs help.

I'll pass this information through to the officer.

From neglected pets to injured wildlife.

For the trained inspectors, every shift is a challenge.

In the field!

That's disgusting.

We can't leave this situation as it is.

Now they tell us what it's really like on the Animal Frontline.

No day, really, is the same.

We have piggies!

It never ceases to amaze me.

I go to bed thinking about it and I wake up thinking about it.

What makes a good RSPCA inspector?

Nerves of steel, stomach of iron,

and a sense of humour!

Today, a call to a dog in serious danger.

The cat stuck on a roof but enjoying the high life.

It's going after its dinner now!

And, for Inspector Claire Fisher,

a surprising find on a Liverpool housing estate.

We have piggies!

In my mind I was thinking, "Pigs... Where do I start?"

Hunting wild animals has been part of British life for centuries.

But nowadays the creatures that live in our countryside

are protected by law.

Forcing one animal to kill another is illegal,

but that doesn't stop some people.

For inspectors, seeing animals pitched against each other

for sport is one of the most distressing calls of all.

It's just horrific. It really is.

I mean, what these people class as a sport

is just sheer, sheer cruelty, really.

That sort of barbaric sport, as you might call it, has no place

in society today. The only place it has got is in our history books.

Wildlife crime is notoriously difficult to prove.

But when the perpetrators film themselves

and the video is seized, it can provide vital evidence.

Right, I'm just starting this video camera now.

This footage was filmed by two men using their dogs to maul a fox.

We received a call from someone who had some film footage

on their mobile phone.

Right, boys, I'm sorry to say but we're just getting a fox.

The mobile phone footage was quite horrific.

There's the hole we got him from. And there's the fox, boys.

Most of what happens in the video is too distressing to show.

They're holding it up off the ground. They're teasing it.

There's terriers around. The terriers are having a go at it.

Snapping at it.

With the help of the police, the men in the video were tracked down.

And today, RSPCA inspector Jaqui Miller and

Northumberland Police are mounting an operation to arrest them.

Welcome, everyone, to this morning.

Today, we'll be doing a warrant under the Animal Welfare Act

Section 20/3/1.

Up here in the north-east,

it's quite...I suppose you could say the word traditional.

And it's sort of ingrained in certain areas

and it's something that they do and they don't see it as being wrong.

You keep the tails as souvenirs.

I bet you weren't expecting that were you? Dogs fighting like that.

And it makes me feel quite sick.

Jaqui hopes that as well as making arrests,

they'll also be able to rescue the dogs involved.

We're looking to get into the properties, seize any dogs that are

at the property, looking for ones that have scars or injuries to them.

Everybody happy with that?

The team head to the first address.

For Jaqui, it's the culmination of weeks of work,

and the stakes are high.

It's a mixture of all sorts of emotions

when you're doing these sort of jobs.

Excitement, a little bit. A little bit of adrenaline rush maybe.

Apprehension.

You've just got to control your anger, I think, when you get in there,

and be professional with these people and do your job.

When they arrive,

Jaqui and the police move quickly to take the suspect by surprise.

You rock up, you get out of the vehicles,

you're straight to the property.

I'm going to caution you. You do not have to say anything

but it may harm your defence if you don't mention

when questioned something which you later rely on in court.

That first property,

there was no other animals in there except a family pet.

But there was a lot of other evidence that would relate

to possible, you know...fox digging.

What would you call this? A pick?

-Yeah, that's a pick, isn't it?

-We've got two jackets, haven't we?

Two bags.

There was a lot of clothes in that particular property that were

the clothes that they were wearing on the film footage.

Then you think, "Yes, we've got you here.

"You can't be doing a runner now."

Arresting the men responsible is a big part of this operation.

But Jaqui also needs to find the dogs seen on the video.

Go on, Cass. Good dogs.

They could've been seriously injured during the attack on the fox.

The fox itself, I think, at one point, snaps back at the dogs

and you hear one of the dogs yelp.

You hear them say one of the dogs being snotted.

It's a slang word for that they've been

got by the fox around its muzzle area.

And that in itself is some sort of trophy that they've got.

Erm, "My dog's been snotted."

So it's a good thing to have... they have scars around their nose.

When Jaqui and the police arrive at the next address,

they quickly find what they're looking for.

As soon as we get in to the second property,

in the back garden there's a black terrier and a female Jack Russell.

Hello, Cas! Good girl.

Hello!

Both of them fitting the descriptions of the dogs

that was on the film footage.

And you can actually hear on the film footage the names of the dogs.

Cas and Tiny are just putting him to ground.

To walk through the door to find the dogs

that was on that film footage...

It doesn't usually happen like that. Or it doesn't often happen like that.

The man's arrested and Jaqui can now get the dogs.

-Tiny the terrier.

-Good lad!

Cas the Jack Russell.

And Meg the lurcher.

It's a great result.

Jaqui and the police have got everything they came for.

The dogs are all examined by the vet,

and their injuries are all consistent with fox-digging.

Presenting the two terriers

and the lurcher to the vet with all these scars around the face

and the chipped tooth, erm, it creates a bigger picture

and gives more evidence that these animals have been used

for this type of work.

There's a little puncture wound there.

She's missing her right upper canine.

That looks like an old injury there.

This was pure deliberate cruelty.

Not only on the fox, but on the dogs, as well.

The two men arrested admitted being involved in the baiting of the fox

and causing unnecessary suffering to the fox and their own dogs.

They both received an 18-week suspended sentence

and were banned from keeping dogs for life.

All three dogs have now been found new and loving homes.

It's extremely satisfying when you get someone to court for this...

you know, just for this cruelty.

You go from a piece of footage that you don't even know who on earth

these people are, on a mobile phone, to track them down, to locate them,

to locate the animals and then bring them through to court for justice.

A little light bulb goes off in your head and you think,

"Yes! Great! Fantastic!"

In Merseyside, some residents have been complaining about a pet owner

causing a bit of a stink in their neighbourhood.

Inspector Claire Fisher is on her way to investigate.

A part of me is thinking,

"There's never going to be pigs.

"It's a terraced house...in Bootle!"

I seriously thought somebody was just taking the mick.

But one of the calls also suggests one pig could be ill.

We've now had a call saying that one of the pigs has collapsed.

So just on sort of welfare grounds, we're just going to go

and see that all of them are OK and upright.

My knowledge of pigs is, erm... kind of limited!

I'm in Liverpool.

It's a city. You don't generally get pig complaints.

When I got to the job, erm, big double gates.

There was no way I was seeing over them.

I could smell something and I could maybe hear a few little noises.

But I couldn't see over so the best thing to do, really,

was get my van next to the fence, jump up on the bonnet,

hope the bonnet doesn't collapse, and, yeah, have a little peek.

We have piggies! Which, as you can see, is a bit random.

Middle of a housing estate -

not quite the location that you expect to see them.

Cats and dogs, that's what I deal with normally.

In my mind, I was thinking, "Pigs... Where do I start?"

Can I come and have a nosey in yours? Is that all right?

The report suggests one of the nine pigs is seriously ill.

One, two, three, four, five...

Claire does a head count.

Nine. Everybody's up, everybody's about so no-one's collapsed.

The main issue that I had was overcrowding.

You know, if you think of the normal size of a yard in Liverpool,

and put nine pigs in it.

There's just no space, it was overcrowded.

Healthy pigs, but they obviously couldn't live there.

It wasn't suitable.

It's very, very, very muddy. Very muddy.

There is a shed that they can get access to.

It's not healthy for them to be living in such a thick slurry.

The high fence disguises the mess,

but it doesn't stop the stench wafting over.

Can you smell it? Disgusting.

-So I assume in the summer you're trying to sit out and...

-You can't!

You can't sit out. No.

I really felt for the neighbour,

living next door, because you've got the poo, you've got the mud,

the general smell.

Flies... summer - that would be horrendous.

-Not nice.

-I'm frightened it goes on the washing, the smell.

-You know, things like that.

-Yeah.

So I just don't know what to do.

Claire decides the pigs need moving.

But she needs permission from the owner, who isn't here.

I'd been told by locals that the owner was a female who's on holiday.

Apparently the thought was, this woman didn't want the pigs anyway.

She'd started with one, it had gone a bit out of control.

Then a surprise passer-by. The pig owner's daughter appears.

Is your mum on holiday at the minute?

She is. She should be back tomorrow, I think.

Mum, I believe, thought the first pig that she bought was a micro-pig.

Didn't quite turn out that way. Big, big pig.

She's not as big as pigs I've seen on a farm.

-But she's still...

-Yeah.

People are selling them as micro-pigs, and this is where,

six months down the line, they're getting big,

and people are thinking, "I think that's a bit big for a micro-pig!"

You know, it's a case of, oh, go on, have a micro-pig!

-Yeah, a little accessory.

-Yeah, it's gone a bit nuts.

-Yeah.

And Claire discovers how one small sow turned into a family of nine.

-She was looking after a farmer's pig.

-She didn't bring a male in, did she?

She's then, for whatever reason, had another pig come to stay with it.

Can you see where this is going? Male. Female.

Get it on.

When she said the pig was pregnant,

I just knew it was a disaster from day one.

The youngsters are starting to get a tad friendly, shall we say?

So, brothers and sisters... never a good combination.

I'm an animal lover but I wouldn't have them pigs.

We've got animals all over our house but I certainly wouldn't have them.

-Pigs are a whole different thing.

-Yeah.

It's frustrating when you see people that get pets

and either haven't looked into it, they don't know what they're

expecting, they don't know how big something's going to get.

It's a bit of a nightmare and I do wish, to be honest, that people

would just think about things a bit more.

Apparently, what we're told,

is that the owner is wanting re-home of them,

but this isn't going to be a, "We'll re-home your pigs in 48 hours!"

That's just not going to happen.

But thankfully, within weeks, there was a happy ending for everyone.

Especially the not-so-micro pigs.

Once I'd left the property and the pigs behind,

we found that there was a home lined up for them.

Somebody was willing to take them.

So, to me, that was a massive thumbs up.

I was chuffed that they were going to a farm,

which is where they should've been in the first place.

Good afternoon, RSPCA National Control Centre,

can I take your name, please?

At the National Control Centre,

operators deal with hundreds of calls a day.

Is there any other animals at the location

or is it just this dog that's there?

It's their job to prioritise animals in need of urgent help.

We do get call after call after call.

Any number of those calls could be an emergency situation,

it could mean life or death for an animal.

This emergency call concerns an address

right in the heart of London.

RSPCA inspector Claire Dew is despatched to investigate.

I'd had numerous calls to this address previously about a dog

being out on the balcony,

but this was the first time anyone had called

to tell us that it was tied up.

So I went straight round there and had a look.

There's a good girl. Hello!

Any dog on a balcony that's off the ground floor is bad enough,

but the very fact you've tied it up out there

so it couldn't move or even sit down,

that's an immediate job for me.

The call was correct.

-Can I get through from here?

-Yeah.

-Cool, thank you.

But, as Claire rushes to get upstairs,

other residents have also picked up the phone.

-Guys in the ground floor flat number

-BLEEP,

-as soon as they saw me, on the phone.

I've been in the job long enough to know they're ringing the guy upstairs.

There's authority and they want to know what we're doing there.

They're letting everyone else on the block know we're there.

Hello, it's the RSPCA. Open the door or I'm coming in anyway.

The very length of time he's taking to answer the door,

I know he's bringing the dog in.

He can probably look out of his back window and see the RSPCA van parked in the street.

He'll know why I'm there.

Right. Coming in.

Right, what's going on? Why is the dog out on the balcony?

It's a dog. When you live in the country, where do dogs live?

On the ground, on the ground floor. In a garden.

You can't put a dog in a flat on a balcony, right?

Four floors up. Come here, baby.

My first priority obviously is checking the dog.

Yeah, it's thin-ish, but it's not concerning enough for me

to be doing too much about it.

What is concerning me is the way that the dog's living

because the way that this gentleman and his girlfriend

are now living in that property.

The dirty old food on the floor, dirty drinks cans.

Tyson appears hungry and is sniffing around for food.

Claire's worried he could harm himself,

but to help him she knows she needs to help his owners.

I'm not there to criticise, I'm not there to judge.

My opinion of their situation doesn't help.

I'm just there to try and do the best for the animal,

and if that includes social work, well then so be it.

If that gets the job done, then I'll do it.

I promise after you leave today, I'm going to clean up the house.

Well I'm going to give you a formal notice to do it.

And I am going to come back.

An official warning gives them seven days to clean things up.

So I've told you that your dog is not been kept in clean conditions

-and it's being kept on the balcony. Yes?

-Mm-hmm.

I've said that you can't keep it on the balcony

-and you need to tidy up. Yes?

-Yes.

-And I'm giving you a week to do it. Yes?

-Yes.

Good man.

This is a situation that occurs time and time again.

They're not coping for some reason, and if I can in some way

break that cycle, whether it by a verbal warning or just

giving them a kick up the butt to do something about it,

that's sometimes all it needs to improve that animal's environment.

But sadly, just two days later,

Claire receives a call from someone else worried about the dog.

Just had a call from a housing officer that I know,

who has informed me that the address that we dealt with

a couple of days ago, the dog on the balcony, where the young

couple were really struggling, the flat was absolutely disgusting...

They appear to have done a bunk.

Tyson has been left without food or clean water.

Claire wants to get him out as quickly as she can.

Nothing had changed. Exactly the same mess, exactly the same smell.

The only situation was the dog was inside and not on the balcony.

Tyson! Hello! Good boy.

I'm going to take you somewhere really nice in just a minute.

Good boy.

Tyson is starving.

Come on. Tyson!

The conditions that the dog's been living in,

I mean how can this possibly be a clean and safe environment?

It's just crazy.

Claire takes photos for evidence of the dog's poor living conditions

in case she has to seize the dog under the animal cruelty act.

Well, he's obviously made no attempt to even do anything

I've asked him to do when I spoke to him two days ago,

even though I formally cautioned him.

And he's made not even one single attempt to start, which,

am I surprised about?

Not really. This happens time and time and time again.

It's not unusual. They're in this environment,

they have no idea how to look after themselves, let alone

look after an animal, and this is what happens.

When Claire checks, Tyson is actually registered to the man's mother.

She agrees to sign him over, and that means he can be re-homed.

Come on, I'll take you somewhere where there's something to eat.

Come on, let's go.

I'm pleased with it from the animal's point of view

cos I've done something to help the animal's situation,

but now those people have got no incentive to sort themselves out.

And I know that's not necessarily my job or my concern, but now there are

two people who have no real reason to start to look after themselves.

In you get. There's a good boy.

It makes me really sad to see.

That's no life at all, is it?

What animal are you calling about today?

It's one of the most common calls to the RSPCA.

And what colour is the cat?

Just in case anyone's reported him missing.

A cat that's got stuck up high and won't or can't get down.

Today, Inspector Trevor Walker is responding to one such mischievous moggy.

The call had come in to say that there was a cat on a roof,

which is so commonplace now it's unbelievable.

It's a natural ability that they have, to climb up.

What they don't have is the ability to climb down.

And they do. They climb trees, they climb all sorts of things.

Cat's been there since two o'clock yesterday afternoon.

It was a two-storey building, but by the time you'd got

the steepness of the roof, it ended up being like a three-storey building.

So we are talking about probably 60 feet

to the top of the ridge tiles.

It's an old cat is that one, isn't it?

It's got a collar on it and a bell, by the looks of it.

Must be really frightened.

Has it attempted to get down onto this flat roof, then, or not?

No. It's gone backwards and forwards.

This cat was traversing the ridge tiles about 60 foot,

so it was constantly moving, which is a nightmare.

It's the last scenario that you need.

Trevor's trained in ladder rescues but the cat's too high.

He's no choice but to call the fire service.

I'll be on the main street so they'll see me

at the end of the sets of shops.

Cheers. Bye-bye.

They're sending the hydraulic platform down.

But they will probably have to close off the street, I'd have thought.

The cat seemed particularly happy. The number of times

when it just kind of sat at the side of the chimney pot

and just started grooming itself without a care in the world.

It's going after its dinner now!

The cat may be happy,

but the cavalry have arrived to get her down.

They decided that they were going to put a fire officer up

onto the ridge tiles.

I think we could probably just tease it along

and get him off from the end?

If it were sensible enough, he can see how easy he can come down.

You know. But they're just nuts, man.

Officers scale the roof to try and lure the cat over.

But she's got other plans.

The cat decided it was going to go to the other chimney stacks.

So the cat just walked away from him.

There was nothing that the fire officer could do.

It's got its 30 seconds of fame and it just doesn't realise it.

But there's more than one way to catch a cat.

Time for a little bribery.

He's flashing some food at him at the moment now, like.

Without any success!

The cat's still not budging, so the fire service change tack.

So they decided, then, that what they were going to do was get the HP out,

which is the hydraulic platform.

They're going to extend the hydraulic platform,

and try and drive the cat back

towards the third chimney stack where the fire officer is, there.

For some people who are obviously thinking that this is a misuse

of the resources of the fire service,

if there was any kind of an incident that developed at this moment in time,

the fire service would drop everything here

and shoot straight off and deal with any human casualties.

The HP operator then decided he was going to try

and move the cat in the right direction,

which more often than not is impossible to do.

You can probably promote a horse or a dog to go in the right

direction, but it's very rare that it happens with a cat.

And then the cat realised what was happening.

This could have been an absolute disaster

because we could have been there for a week.

Just going backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards.

Go on, Bibby! Go on! Go on!

It was moving, actually, along in the right direction, towards where

the fire officer was hiding behind the other chimney stack.

Go on, just talk to him now then. Talk to him.

Good lad. Good lad.

I'd already suggested that when the cat came anywhere near him

that the officers should really make a grab for the cat.

That's it, don't rush him. Don't rush him.

And don't necessarily be particularly delicate with it.

Good lad.

Excellent! He's got him now. Can you see him?

Well done, that fella. Well scruffed.

Well scruffed.

But this cat's not coming quietly.

If you can scruff him again. Try and scruff him again.

That's the way. That's good. Spot on.

Excellent piece of scruffing. I thought he was going to go back!

DOG BARKS

That's probably why the cat went up in the first place!

He's already spooked, is this, without that.

Hello, Bibby. Hello.

Once I'd got the cat down there, I checked the cat over.

There was no issue with the cat whatsoever.

It wasn't thin, lean, it was in good condition.

Excellent piece of driving.

Do you just want to have a look on that collar,

just see if there's a number on the collar? On that disc.

And lo and behold,

on the collar there was a disc with a telephone number on it.

I've got a cat, a tabby, exactly like that.

It's great when they get rescued.

Obviously, he's petrified and starving, so a good end to a good day's work.

All's well that ends well.

And so I met the lady the following day with her cat,

and they were both reunited and so everybody's happy.

CAT MEOWS

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